


new year, new start

by StarlightDragon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Chance Meetings, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Or not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5575810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDragon/pseuds/StarlightDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a year and a half since Gabriel Novak and Sam Winchester broke up, and Gabriel's still reminded of his ex boyfriend every time he looks at the ring stashed at the back of his sock drawer. But by this point, Sam has obviously moved on, and there's no way Gabriel can fix things - so he believes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	new year, new start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Itch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itch/gifts).



> December 30 is World Sabriel Day. Let's celebrate.
> 
> So I don't know if he noticed what I was doing, but I decided to give Itch a different birthday/World Sabriel Day present on every social media site we know each other on. There's a tumblr fic, a skype fic, a facebook fic, a twitter fic, a handwritten fic, and finally this. 
> 
> Also, this is my last fic of 2015, and I just want to say a general thankyou to everyone who's read any of the 23 (!) Supernatural fics I've posted here this year. It means a lot to me that you all read and appreciate my stuff and I'm super excited to write even more next year.

"You know what? Fuck that. I'm done with the shouting, I'm done with this argument, and if you're just going to keep bringing this up then maybe I'm done with you too, Sam! I'm not gonna make you stay when you can clearly do so much better than me and you clearly don't like the person I am. So leave. Stop hurting me more by making me watch you hate me more and more each day. Leave and don't come back."

Those were the words that Gabriel had spent the past year and a half regretting. 

In just a few short seconds, those sentences had ruined everything. Sam Winchester had been the love of his life, and of course, Gabriel had messed it up. He hadn't appreciated what a good thing he'd had with Sam, or maybe he had, but he'd just thought he hadn't deserved it. But he supposed that in the end, it wasn't a huge surprise. He was always going to mess things up at some point. Better now then ten years down the line when they might have kids to think about too. 

And Gabriel was used to being on his own. He'd done it before he met Sam and he was doing it again now. Yes, there had been that brief, shining year of his life when he hadn't been alone, when he'd had someone who he could share everything with and who looked at him like he meant the world to them, but it wasn't built to last. It was only ever meant to be a memory.

He still had the ring, of course. Stupid ring, not even a real ring, it just came from the one time they'd spent a few days at the beginning of the summer down in Brighton, just before everything fell apart. They'd gone to the pier and spent a whole day in the arcades getting way too competitive on the 2p penny falls machines and Gabriel had won a MP3 player and celebrated because he thought there was no way Sam could top that, but then Sam had won the stupid plastic ring and he'd got down on one knee and presented it to Gabriel with a flourish.

"Gabriel, will you-" he'd began, gazing up into Gabriel's eyes, and Gabriel had gasped, clutching his hands to his face, unable to believe that Sam was doing this here, now, when Gabriel least expected it- "Will you admit defeat and tell me that I'm the best on the 2p machines?"

Gabriel had laughed. "I guess a good marriage is all about compromise. Give me that and I'll admit that you're the best."

Sam had slid the ring onto Gabriel's finger and Gabriel had waved it in the air triumphantly, pulling Sam to his feet and kissing him hard in the middle of the arcade, blissfully happy. He wanted nothing more than to take a long walk along the beach hand in hand with Sam, taking dumb selfies of Gabriel holding his ring in the air, both of them dipping their toes in the sea and flicking cold water at each other, not stopping walking until the sun had gone down.

"I thought we were just playing!" Sam shouted later in their hotel room. "I didn't think you actually wanted to get married!  I mean, shit, Gabe, it's only been a year! And that's not very long!"

"So you don't want to marry me, that's what you're saying?" Gabriel yelled back, taking the ring off and shoving it into the depths of his pocket. 

Sam had sank down onto the bed, putting his head in his hands, knowing there was no right answer here. "Someday, yeah! But I'm twenty-seven, I haven't even got my career sorted yet, I struggle to afford rent. I'm just not at a place in my life where I can or want to get married!"

"It's not about a place in your life!" Gabriel screamed, slamming his hand against the wall. "It's about the fact that I love you and I want to be with you forever and there shouldn't be practical concerns involved in that! We should just do it! Because we want to!"

"Yeah, but I don't want to, do I?"

"You don't want to be with me?"

"I love you and I want to be with you, I just don't want to marry you!"

"I don't see the difference! You can't love me halfway, Sam!"

They'd gone around and around like that for days; the car ride back to London being one of the single worst experiences of Gabriel's life to date. When they'd got back to their flat, he'd finally given in, said that it was fine if Sam didn't want to marry him and that he'd stay anyway since it wasn't like he really had anywhere else to go. Then he'd gone out and bought a bottle of Sainsbury's Basics vodka and drank the whole thing. 

Sam had taken care of him while he was throwing up and passed out, and he held a wet flannel to Gabriel's forehead and petted his hair while he waited for Gabriel to feel better, and for a couple of days it felt like everything was going to turn out okay between them. But then the shouting had started again. Sam saying that it was clear the two of them wanted different things out of the relationship, and that Gabriel shouldn't just stay because he didn't have a better offer. Telling Gabriel that it was clear they had a lot of things they needed to work on, and that they should take some time and really talk about how they were going to fix things.

And Gabriel had been scared, so scared. He wasn't good at getting past fights; it was why he tried not to get into them in the first place. He didn't know how to talk about his feelings to Sam or how to repair their relationship. It was easier to keep shouting, and then the shouting got too much, and then the easiest thing became telling Sam to get the hell out.

And the worst part of all was that Sam had listened.

Gabriel hadn't really expected that. Sam was stubborn as hell; they both were, so part of him thought that Sam would force him to sit down and talk - which deep down he knew was probably what he needed. But Sam hadn't. He hadn't even replied. He'd walked into their bedroom and packed up his things and within two hours he was gone from Gabe's apartment, and it was like he'd never been there in the first place.

Gabe was numb. He was past even the point of drinking the pain away. There was nothing he could do, nothing except slump to the floor and sit there with his head in his hands, shaking and hugging his knees close to himself against the cold even though there was nothing wrong with the temperature - he was just used to warmth because Sam gave off so much body heat all the time. He couldn't move or speak or think for hours; it was all the energy he could muster just to _be_.

And then, just when he'd began to pick himself up off the floor and dust off his trousers and maybe thinking about getting back to the real world - he found the ring.

He'd left it in his jeans pocket back at the hotel room, and it must have worked its way out during the journey back, because when Gabriel unzipped his suitcase to finally make a start on unpacking, there it was, on top of all his other clothes. Stupid plastic ring, chipped on one side, not even shiny. Gabriel should have thrown it out, he knew that. Should have tossed it in the bin and never looked back.

But he didn't. He tucked it in the back of his sock drawer, inside an old pair of moose patterned socks that he never wore anymore, and he left it there.

Sometimes it was a comfort to Gabriel, knowing that the ring was close by. Sometimes he dug it out of his drawer when the bed was too big and he couldn't sleep, and he cuddled the socks into his chest and he knew exactly what was inside, and it both helped and hurt more all at the same time. But other times, the ring repulsed him, and there were nights when Gabriel got out of bed and dragged his blankets over to the couch and slept there, because he couldn't stand to be in the same room as it, as the object that had wrecked the only good thing that had ever happened in his life.

As time went on, he started to forget about it more and more; about both Sam and the ring. They still both passes through his mind, but it was less frequent. Gabriel stayed well away from any kind of relationship, but he restored the other parts of his life to something vaguely resembling normality, and the days that he actually pulled out the ring to look at it became rare.

New Years' Eve, the final day of 2015, was one of those days.

And that's how Gabriel came to be lying on the couch in the living room of his apartment eating lukewarm frozen pizza and attempting to play Mario Kart with only his nondominant hand, finding it more difficult than usual to block out all thoughts of his ex boyfriend, when he heard the doorbell ring.

He scowled to himself, rolling onto the floor and picking himself up from the pile of cushions and crumbs, shuffling over to the hallway and yanking the door open, revealing his friend Balthazar leaning against the frame and smirking at him.

"You know where the spare key is, Bal," Gabriel said, rolling his eyes and turning away to flop back down on the couch, irritated that Balthazar had made him put all that effort into getting up.

"Stop being a shit, Gabriel. Come out for New Year's. You know as well as I do that we'll both end up going home with the hottest people in the place," Balthazar winked. "Hey, maybe we could even make it a foursome? Just like old times?"

Gabriel turned back, shrugged and managed to fake a tiny smile. He always had bad days whenever he looked at the ring, and he thought that he really should know by now not to do that, but some days he just couldn't help himself from digging it out of his drawer and feeling it between his fingers, feeling the glimmer of what could have been. It was good to remember, he supposed. Reminded him never to let himself fuck up that bad again.

"Yeah, alright. Find me something decent to wear and I'll come with you," he agreed, because whatever party Bal had lined up couldn't be any worse than lying on his bed watching porn and crying about being a terrible human being. 

Bal only spent a couple of minutes in Gabe's closet before he reappeared with a pair of leather trousers Gabriel hadn't worn since before he met Sam and a tight purple button down shirt, thrusting them towards Gabriel and ordering him to change.

Gabriel had found from past experience with Balthazar, who he'd known since university, that it was easier to just do as he was told. He stripped off right there in the hallway, pulled on the new clothes, grabbed his phone, keys and wallet, and followed Balthazar to the club where this party was due to be held. He paid the entry fee and let himself get pat down by a middle aged man with a beer belly, and then he was inside, nothing more than a man who'd recently past thirty having some kind of early midlife crisis and trying to pretend he was still part of the young peoples' culture.

"Do you want to maybe try to get a booth?" Gabriel screamed in Balthazar's ear, because the dancefloor didn't really make it easy to talk to people, and actual conversation sounded a lot more interesting than grinding up on random people, especially at this time of the night.

"On New Year's Eve? We'll never get one! Only got in at all because Luci who owns the place owes me a favour," Balthazar replied, grabbing Gabriel by the hand and tugging him into the middle of the swarm of people.

Gabriel managed a few songs, but once the foam machine got switched on, he was done. He yelled a quick "Back in a bit!" to Balthazar before pushing his way over to the back doors that led to the outside. The area was typically used by people who wanted to smoke, which Gabriel didn't in the slightest, so he supposed that it didn't really count as fresh air, but it was at least cooler and quieter than it was inside. He leaned his face against a cool metal railing designed to stop people from sneaking in round the back and took a few deep breaths of the harsh winter chill.

A few people, making a lot of noise and already very drunk from the sound of it, appeared behind Gabriel, jostling and play fighting with each other as they searched in their pockets for cigarette packets. Gabriel felt a sharp stiletto heel jab him in the leg unexpectedly from where someone had clearly lost their balance, and he stumbled, crashing into the person who stood to the right of him.

"Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your smoking time," Gabriel apologized, righting himself against the railing and turning to face the other person. "I-"

But at that moment, his eyes caught up to his brain and he took in, really took in, the person who was standing in front of him, not actually holding a cigarette at all but most likely here just to escape the crowds, much like Gabriel himself was.

Sam Winchester.

It was agony to see him again. It felt like Sam was reaching inside Gabriel's chest and yanking his heart out from where it lay bruised against his ribs, and yet at the same time that Sam's touch was magically healing it and making it whole again, because even just being in this kind of proximity to Sam made Gabriel relax somehow, and let go of some of the tension and armour he'd been carrying around for the past year and a half. Sam healed him, and yet Gabriel knew that he had the power to rip him open all over again, and would certainly do it in just a moment when he gave Gabriel a disgusted look and walk off.

Only Sam didn't seem to be doing that. He was staring back at Gabriel with just as much wonder and heartbreak in his eyes.

Gabriel thought that Sam's hair might be even longer than it had been the last time he'd seen him. Certainly his face had changed; it was more rugged, with stubble that had been left for a couple of days and cheekbones that were more defined. He wore a plain black T-shirt and black jeans; nothing that suggested he was really trying to show off his body, but then again, Gabriel had seen it before. He remembered what was hiding under those clothes, and he had never missed it more than in this moment.

After he'd drank his fill and taken in as much of Sam's appearance as he possibly could, Gabriel breathed out a, "Hi."

"Hi."

Sam's eyes swept Gabriel up and down, and he nodded approvingly. "Changed your look up a bit, I see. Being single suits you."

Gabriel shook his head. "No, these are from before I met you. Balthazar made me wear them. I think if you saw what I wear most days you'd think being single suits me far less."

"I don't know. I've always thought you were beautiful," Sam murmured, acting for all the world as though they were completely alone out here and not surrounded by drunk revelers.

Gabriel cleared his throat and took a step back, physically struggling against Sam's magnetic pull. "What about you? I'm guessing you've found someone new by this point?"

"No, no. I had, uh, a rebound, for a couple months after we split up. Her name was Ruby and she was pretty crazy. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes bad. And ever since then I've really just been trying to focus on myself, and sort my own life out."

"That sounds sensible. Guess you were always the sensible one."

"Come on. I'm sure you've done some important things since I last saw you, too," Sam said fairly.

Gabriel thought about this for a while. "Um. Sure. I've gone to work most days. Seen my friends. Slept occasionally. I'm serious, Sam, I haven't travelled or found myself or any of that shit! I've just existed, and sometimes even that's been a close call."

"That's crap. I know you, and I know that's crap. Even if you feel like you haven't done anything worthwhile, you have. You light up rooms. You make people feel happy just by being in their presence."

Gabriel scowled. It wasn't fair. Sam couldn't just drop out of his life for a year and a half and move on and barely even miss him and then come back out of the blue and start saying all these lovely things. "Yeah, that's just words, Sam. Nice words, but words nonetheless. They don't mean anything," he said coldly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overstep. Too soon?" Sam sounded genuinely apologetic.

Gabriel gave an awkward wave of his hand. "Anyway. I'm not going to spoil your evening with my moping. What are you doing here?"

Sam gave Gabriel a sad smile. "Friends. You know how it is. Got dragged along by Charlie and Kevin and Garth; remember them?"

Gabriel did remember them. He remembered the one New Year's Eve that he and Sam had spent together, when those three had come over to stay with them for the night. The five of them had all got roaringly drunk and Charlie had kept holding a sprig of holly over his and Sam's head because she 'couldn't find any mistletoe' and Kevin had dug out his acoustic guitar and improvised a song about the two of them and Garth had very seriously proclaimed them 'the best couple they knew'. They'd all fallen asleep on the living room floor separately, but sometime in the night Sam and Gabriel had found each other and had woken up with hands intertwined.

It was one of Gabriel's best memories.

"Yeah, think I vaguely do."

"Well, they're still as crazy as ever. Never thought anyone would call you this, but I kind of miss having you around to be a bit more... normal."

Gabriel chuckled, his mind swimming in a haze of confused emotions. Sam missed him, he was being nice to him, and yet he didn't want to be with him? Gabriel was done. He remembered how it had felt to have Sam shouting at him for days on end, to not know where he stood or if they were ever going to be okay, and there was no way he could put himself through that all over again. He was, finally, ready to move on, with just one more thing to say to make sure Sam would be okay too. 

"Sam, I just wanna say that I'm not trying to blame you for any of the shit that's happened to me. It's just who I am. I'm bad luck and I'm broken and you knew that when you met me, it's not like any of this is new. It's okay. You don't have to talk to me. Bal and I are going to find some people to fuck and take enough shots to forget your beautiful face."

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Gabriel began to walk back into the club before Sam had the chance to speak.

But Gabriel looked back around before he reached the door. Sam was still standing in the exact same position, staring after him.

"You know, it really does make me happy to see you like this. I'm glad that at least one of us is happy. And I would rather it were you than me. I'm not lying when I say that I want you to have the best life in the world."

With that, Gabriel turned around, and this time he really did leave. 

The ideas for the night out seemed even less fun to Gabriel now than they had before he'd ran into Sam, but he did his best to enjoy them anyway. He sank a few shots and put them on Balthazar's tab, because it was Bal's fault that Gabe had had to deal with Sam again, so he could deal with buying Gabriel a few drinks for the trouble. He danced with a few girls, a few guys, staying well away from anyone who even vaguely resembled Sam. And just as promised, as midnight approached, Balthazar showed up again with a crowd of _holy shit was that ten people_ and announced that they were all going back to his place and that Gabriel would of course be the guest of honour.

Gabriel followed them, blending in with the crowd, reaching the main front doors just as the clock struck midnight.

Everyone around him grabbed each other and rang in the New Year with a kiss, and Balthazar was kissing two people at once, which left Gabriel all on his own. He turned to look behind him and he saw another man, recognizable only because he was several inches taller than everyone else there, close to the bar, also refusing to partake in the cheering and kissing, but glancing wildly around the room as though searching for something, or someone, in particular.

And Sam ran towards Gabriel as he saw him walk out of the club. Sam caught up to him just as they reached the main street, his hair flying around his face in the still London night, his face focused on only one thing. "Gabriel! Gabriel!"

Gabe turned around, breaking himself off from the knot of people he was with and jogging back a few paces so that he was alone with Sam. He wasn't sure any of them even noticed or cared but it didn't matter to him; the only thing in the world he could focus on was that Sam had followed him, ran after him. This time, Sam had come back for him. 

And really, wasn't that all he'd wanted the first time around? For Sam to fight to stay with him?

As soon as he was close enough, Sam scooped Gabriel off the ground, lifting him up in the air as he kissed him, and it made Gabriel want to cry. Sam's mouth was so desperately, painfully familiar on his, and Gabriel had had no idea quite how much he'd missed it until he had it back. He leaned further into Sam, deepening the kiss, taking as much as he could possibly get, trying to make up for a year and a half of missed kisses in this one moment.

When Sam pulled away and gently placed Gabriel on the ground, there were tears streaming down Gabriel's face.

"You said you wanted me to have the best life in the world, right?" Sam asked, breathless. 

Gabe nodded, breathing heavily himself and a little bit in shock as he panted out, "Yeah, and I meant it."

"Well, for me? I think the best life in the world would most definitely include you."

Gabriel was still reeling from the kiss. He pointed to himself, silently mouthing, "Me?"

"Yeah, Gabe, you. Look, I'm sorry your New Year's kiss was a few minutes late, but... can I maybe make it up to you? Back at your place? Our old place?"

"Well - what exactly would making it up to me involve?" Gabriel wanted to say yes more than anything, but just the kiss had been painful enough. He wasn't sure he'd be able to cope with having sex with Sam and then watching Sam walk out the door all over again.

"Whatever you want it to. I'd love to fuck you, because God knows it's been a while. But I'd also love to cuddle with you, to take you out for breakfast tomorrow morning, to talk to you and maybe even... start things up again."

Gabriel stared up at Sam, the words filling him with a jagged kind of hope that sliced away at his insides and reminded him that this was almost certainly too good to be true. "You want... to get back together... with me?"

"Gabriel. Angel. I never wanted to break up with you. But you told me to leave and I thought I should respect that. You said it was harder for you to keep fighting and I thought you'd be happier without me. I never wanted it, but I thought it was best for you and I thought you agreed and that, that is the only thing that's kept me going all this time. But seeing you tonight... it made me realize that maybe I was wrong. You and me, maybe we make each other better. So it's completely your call here. But if you want to make a go of things again? It'd mean everything to me."

"Well, fuck," Gabriel cursed, because there it was, every single thought and feeling about Sam that he'd tried so hard to hide somewhere in the back of his mind where he couldn't find it any more was back full force all at once and trying to crush his brain from the inside out. But then again, maybe he didn't have to fight it. Because somehow, even though Gabriel couldn't quite understand it, Sam seemed to feel exactly the same way he did.

"Well, fuck?" Sam questioned, looking like he wasn't sure whether to be amused or worried.

"Well, fuck, turns out I'm still completely and irreversably in love with you."

Sam wrapped his arms tight around Gabriel and pulled him into a hug that made Gabriel feel like everything in the entire world was Sam and that he'd never have to worry about anything outside of Sam's embrace.

After that, they did as promised and went back to Gabriel's apartment, now once more Gabriel and Sam's apartment, and Sam fucked Gabriel slower and more carefully than he ever had before. Then, they fell asleep snuggled tight together in the middle of their bed, ignoring all the space to either side. In the morning, they woke up leisurely and then walked around the corner to a local cafe where they bought bagels and smoothies, and there they talked about what the two of them wanted for their future.

Gabriel only cried five times.

One year later, Sam and Gabriel woke up next to each other between cool white sheets in the apartment the two of them had bought together just a few months ago. 

"You awake?" Sam asked when he saw Gabriel's eyes flicker open. 

"Mmm. Kind of," Gabriel replied, shifting so that his head was on Sam's chest rather than on the pillow. He smiled and softly hummed Auld Lang Syne to himself.

Sam chuckled. "Okay, good. Because I found something in your things when we were unpacking from the move. I wanted to ask you about it."

Gabriel would usually have been nervous about something like this, but right now the blend of comfort and happiness and slight hangover had him barely concerned. "Alright, go ahead."

Sam reached over to the drawer in his bedside table and pulled out a small plastic ring.

Now Gabriel was officially "Shit. Shit, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have kept it, I haven't even looked at it since we got back together, I swear, haven't even thought about it, I just-"

"Shh, baby," Sam hushed him, touching a finger to Gabriel's lips. "Just listen to me."

Sam didn't look mad. His eyes were soft and crinkled at at the edges as he gazed at Gabriel, and Gabe wasn't scared anymore. He nodded.

"I've spent two years with you, but they weren't consecutive years. The first year we spent together was so much fun. I laughed every day, I got butterflies in my stomach when I saw you, I constantly wanted to pick you up and swing you around and, yeah, fuck you against a wall. It was amazing. But it wasn't a serious relationship, and I couldn't see myself marrying you. But then came the second year that we spent together. And by that point we were both older and more mature, I guess, and things were different. We didn't... grab each other's hands and run off and start a new life together. Instead we fit into each other's lives, we worked to make room for each other, we dealt with our responsibilities, we talked things out. And through all that? I still got butterflies in my stomach whenever I saw you. And to me, that's love. The kind that lasts forever."

Gabriel sat up in bed, suddenly too excited and full of too much love for Sam to stay lying down passively, leaning forward to listen better. Sam continued.

"And when I found this ring in your drawer, it felt like it was maybe a sign. Maybe it could be something that connected the first and second parts of our relationship - because both were great, and I don't regret a single day that I spent with you, I only regret the far too many days that we spent apart. They were probably necessary, but I still regret them. And in that time, this ring was the only part of me you had, and... it may be cheap, it may not be traditional, and you better believe that I'll get you the most fucking beautiful wedding ring you've ever seen, but - I'd like this to be the part of me that you keep with you all the time."

Gabriel's eyes widened, and he was sure he knew what was happening, but he wasn't going to say anything. Not until he was absolutely sure. He wouldn't make that mistake again, but he was hoping, desperately hoping.

"So, Gabriel Steven Novak, let me just ask you, without confusion or doubt, just being completely clear and honest about what I want because I'm here and I'm happy and I love you - will you marry me?"

"Yes. Yes, Samshine, infinity times yes."

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed it angelcake <3
> 
> talk to me **casandsip.tumblr.com**


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